


And If the Silence Takes You Then I Hope It Takes Me Too

by JackEPeace



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: A Quiet Place, AU, F/F, horror movie AUs, what happens when I write things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 14:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14547129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackEPeace/pseuds/JackEPeace
Summary: You could go the rest of your life not saying anything. You don’t really mind so much about not being able to hear the endless lectures and rambling of the other people in your life or the strangers on the sidewalk.But you do miss the sound of her voice.(A Quiet Place AU)





	And If the Silence Takes You Then I Hope It Takes Me Too

**Author's Note:**

> Basically when I have free reign to do anything I want, these are the types of things that I come up with. I think everything, honestly, should be a horror movie AU...just throwing that out there...horror movies are the best honestly. 
> 
> I tried to write this so that you didn't need to see A Quiet Place to understand it (really if you've seen the trailer to know the basic concept that's all you need!) and I also tried to keep any spoilers from the movie out of this fic. But some scenes in the fic were definitely inspired by the movie.
> 
> I wrote some of the scenes non-linearly but tried to keep it flowing together to make sense! 
> 
> Title comes from "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie and I hope this story is appropriately gay.

You try to remember the last thing that you said out loud. You try to remember if it was a word, a sentence. A question, an answer. Was it important? Why did you say it? Who did you say it to?

These are the questions that you play through your mind as you lay there in the grass, staring up at the sky. The world has kept on turning, oblivious of the fact that it’s supposed to be ending. Nature is probably grateful, you think, that most of the human population is gone, wiped out. It’s starting to flourish again, you’ve noticed; the grass is growing higher, the vines starting to snake toward the houses, growing up the walls, twisting through cracks in the pavement. You do miss the sound of the birds singing, though, but some things can’t be helped.

The grass is prickly and dry against your back, poking into the space between your shoulder blades. If you stay here forever, endlessly staring up at the sky above, counting the clouds that drift lazily by, you wonder if the grass will start to grow around you or over you. Would you eventually sink into the dirt? Would anyone miss you?

What was the last thing you said out loud?

You could open your mouth right now, you think. Just open your mouth and say something, anything at all. You could just scream, like you used to do, back when it was a luxury. Back when you used to grab your pillow off the bed and scream into it so you didn’t wake your grandmother or your mom, who had to work the early morning shift. You had secretly wanted someone to hear you then, to ask you what was wrong.

But you know if you scream now, something _will_ hear you, and it’ll be over.

You aren’t even brave enough to whisper a single word into the sky above you, your heart hammering in your chest to even think about it. Once, you used to break any rule that you came across; it was fun, then. It doesn’t seem all that fun, now.

So you don’t. You just swallow the word down.

But you know what it would be.

Instead, your tongue sticks to the rough of your mouth and your eyes stare up at the clouds. The sky is a perfect blue. The only sound is the breeze blowing through the dry grass, rustling the stalks against each other. The clouds look low enough to touch and you squint, trying to make them into shapes. It’s not so much fun without someone there beside you, though. Someone who really _could_ see the shapes and made you see them too.

You hope that the last thing you said out loud really mattered, that it wasn’t something stupid. In your mind, when you remember, it seems like the world is just split into a before and after: before the creatures and after the moment when everyone realized what made them chase and hunt and rip things apart. It was sudden, this realization: _they can hear you_. A door slamming shut, a lock snapping closed. They can hear you. And so, just like that, silence.

Knowing you, the last thing you said was probably stupid. _No way_ or _well that sucks_. Technically your final words, if no one ever figures out how to save the world and get rid of these things.

They make it look so easy in the movies. Where’s the superhero that’s going to drop down from the sky and save the day? You think you’re all about three months overdue for a dramatic rescue.

Though, you know better. You already know there’s no one coming to save the day. No one ever does.

No one is coming to save the day and the sky is clear and blue and perfect. It’s the perfect day outside and the world has technically ended. There’s a word on the tip of your tongue you can think all day long but not say and suddenly it feels like everything is just so terrible and so terribly funny at the same time that all you really want to do is laugh.

But you can’t do that _either_.

Because you finally met the one rule that you’re afraid to break.

Behind you, a sound. Soft enough, you think, to not draw attention. But you’ve gotten better at listening these days, now that you aren’t constantly hearing the sounds of life going on around you. You miss the sounds of the city: the cars, the people, the sizzle of the lights that flash at all hours, the coming and going of a hundred people you’ll never meet.

Now, it’s easy to hear things, things you never thought about before. Of course, the place where you’ve been for the past two months is different from the city in pretty much every way -except for the people there with you.

The sound: a snap, a footstep.

You sit up, your head lurching momentarily, the rest of the world coming back into focus: sky above once more, tall grass and landscape directly in front of you. Behind you, a figure, as though conjured by the thoughts running through your mind.

The one word you still wish you could say. The one word you think the last rule in the world is worth breaking for.

_Riley_.

There are moments where you think all of this doesn’t matter, not really. That the world -or what’s left of it anyway- has descended into silence and that’s okay because the one person that still really matters can understand you. That person has always been able to read your mind, for good or bad, and you think as long as she can still do that -and you can still do your best to glean what you can from her mind- then everything will be okay.

You could go the rest of your life not saying anything. You don’t really mind so much about not being able to hear the endless lectures and rambling of the other people in your life or the strangers on the sidewalk.

But you do miss the sound of her voice.

You watch her, picking her way carefully through the grass on her way to you. She’s starting to move differently, less like a foal finding its feet for the first time and more like she’s finally growing into herself. Riley, like everyone else, has become far more aware of herself than you wish that she was -at least now. You miss her the way that she was before: saying whatever came into her mind, as though the thought would disappear forever if she didn’t give it life in that exact moment; you miss her long and gangly; you miss her too busy and preoccupied with chasing ideas to look at where she was putting her feet.

Now, you count the days since you last heard her voice.

Now you watch Riley watching her feet, all too aware of the different pieces of her body and how they fit together. How you can read her mind in this moment: how she’s afraid to be the one that breaks that all important rule.

Riley looks up and smiles and you fill in the sound of the silence with her voice in her mind, a memory of the dozens and dozens of times you’ve heard her say the words: _hi Maya_. You miss the sound of your name coming out of her mouth.

You wish you had known that there was a limit on the number of times you would hear her say it. Riley had always promised you forever and that was enough; it was the one thing in your life that you didn’t question. But you never thought that, well, something like this might happen.

If you had known there was a limit, a finite number of times you would hear her say your name, you think you would have worked a little harder to remember the exact cadence of it.

_Hi Maya_ , she would say, as she sat down next to you in the grass. Her knees press into yours, proof that she’s still mostly angles and trembling foal legs.

You think about her name, holding it in your mind. _Riley_. You wish that had been the last thing that you said out loud.

There’s nothing to do aside from look at Riley, framed by the perfectly blue sky, the sun completing its arc across the sky like it always does -like it always will, probably. You’re both trying to learn how to communicate like this, to train yourselves how to talk when you can’t open your mouths. Topanga is working on the mechanics sign language, pouring over the books stolen from the library.

Stealing apparently isn’t a rule that matters so much anymore.

You’ve started to learn that pretty much all rules are breakable now, now that the world has ended.

Except that one in particular.

Every night, after dinner (dinner with the Matthews, it seems, is something the end of the world can’t even take away from you), you all sit around in the growing darkness and fumble with this new way of speaking. Your fingers, it seems, never seem to make the letters correctly, never seem to convey what you want them to.

This isn’t entirely surprising. You were never an exceptional student in school.

But it does make you feel a little better to watch Riley in the flickering light of the camping lantern and see her face pinched up as she studies her own traitorous hands. 

You’ll get it, you think. Or at least _they_ will.

And until then, you’ll just have to rely on the old confidence of having nothing important to say and the certainty that Riley will understand you anyway.

Riley leans forward and you nearly have to cross your eyes to keep her into focus. The two months you’ve spent out here has already started to change her features -darkening her cheeks, her hair growing longer, her nail polished clipped.

You remember painting her nails in her bedroom. You wish you could remember exactly what you talked about and the sound of her voice.

She leans forward now, close enough that you can smell the sun on her skin, and she plucks a stalk of grass from where it had been tangled in your hair. She holds it up for you to see with a hint of a smirk on her face. _Maya¸_ you think she might say…but you don’t bother to fill in the rest of the sentence from there.

It doesn’t matter so much, you think, as the exasperated way that she would say your name in this moment.

She tries to pass the grass back to you but you shake your head, pushing her hand gently back in her own direction with a waggle of your eyebrows. Hopefully the gesture and the way your eyebrows lift manage to convey all the self-importance of a knight giving a prize to his lady.

Even if you are no knight and a dried bit of grass is hardly a prize.

Riley seems to understand enough at least to roll her eyes, shaking her head at you, even as a smile turns up the corners of her lips. She keeps the grass, slipping it behind her ear, the frayed pieces brushing her forehead.

That, at least, hasn’t been stolen by the end of the world.

At least Riley Matthews still knows how to smile.

 

* * *

 

_You’re sitting in math class praying for a swift in or an alien invasion that will bring your suffering to an end when your phone vibrates in your pocket -which is not an unusual occurrence- and the name on the screen is Riley’s -which_ is _unusual, considering that you know that she’s in English right now._

_Before you can even open the first message, she’s sending another one. Neither of them make that much sense, a jumble of texts that pretty much amount to the conclusion that she’s worried about something going on in the news._

_You start to roll your eyes at this; you tell her all the time not to bother with the news, that it’ll always be bad, that it’ll always make her upset because of some injustice happening somewhere in the world._

_But when the phone belonging to the person in front of you starts to vibrate, your eye roll stops in mid-swing. The person off to your left is pulling his phone out of his bag, just like the person behind you is doing. The teacher doesn’t even have a chance to remind you all to look away from your screens at and the board (“_ this _is why you’re in remedial math, people” is a favorite line of his) because his phone is vibrating too, and it seems like a strange coincidence for all of this to be happening at once._

_So you stop wanting to roll your eyes and start typing back a response._ What’s going on? Where are you?

_No one even looks up when you grab your bag, getting to your feet and heading for the door. You kinda miss the days of middle school, when your escape from class was seem as somewhat inevitable and a quirky little Maya Hart thing. Here, in high school, people actually expect you to follow the bell schedule and it can be pretty annoying._

_But still, you’re grateful no one says anything right now -whatever emergency has everyone’s attention is enough of a distraction to cover your tracks._

_You find her in the bathroom on the first floor, the one down the hall from her English class, and she’s standing by the mirrors worrying her thumbnail between her teeth, her face etched in worry. You aren’t used to seeing Riley worried, not for an extended amount of time, not in the way that makes her muscles stiff and her back rigid._

_You’re too pleased with the fact her posture seems to relax, just a bit, when she sees you come into the room._

_You have that effect on her and it matters way more than it should._

_Or maybe, you think, it doesn’t matter enough._

_“Okay, Peaches,” you say as you walk over to her, tossing your bag onto the ground, “what’s the matter?”_

_“Maya,” she says and there’s a little quiver in her voice. It matches the furrowing of her brow. “I think there’s something really weird going on. It’s all over the news. I think it’s actually bad.”_

_You think about this might mean, what’s on the news that has her so bothered. War, terrorists, oil spills, giant pandas going extinct._

_But what you see later is nothing like those things. Except maybe the part about war -though against what, no one is really certain. Creatures that are fast and move through people with ease, killing with impunity while people scream and bullets ricochet off their bodies. Both of these things seem to only make them more upset -their rage clear through the amateur cell phone footage that plays again and again that night on every news network._

_The reports on your phone don’t really give you much to go on right now -warnings to stay inside, warnings of strange crafts, even stranger visitors, talk of the governor already considering declaring a state of emergency._

_You feel like an idiot, but the first words out of your mouth are, “They’re probably going to cancel school.” Like that is somehow the important thing._

_This comment seems to appropriately horrify Riley and you almost wish that you could take it back. You reach for her shoulder, putting your hand on it to steady her. “What did your dad say?”_

_“He’s busy,” she says. “Meeting with some of the other teachers. Probably about…you know…” Canceling school, you think, a concept that still seems foreign to her._

_Or maybe it only proves her earlier suspicion, that this is serious._

_“Did he seem worried?” You don’t think you’ve ever seen Corey Matthews serious or worried. Or seriously worried._

_But when Riley looks at you, you think that’s your answer. You swallow. “Okay.”_

_“I want to get Auggie.” Her voice sounds shaky and unfamiliar in the school bathroom._

_You pick up your bag and hers. “Okay. Let’s go.”_

_You’ve walked out of school before, just never with Riley Matthews in tow._

_It’ll be the last time either of you are inside that building._

 

* * *

 

It’s just the five of you, the way it always is. The way it always has been. The way, you imagine, it always will be.

No one mentions the people who are missing, just like no one mentions the empty chairs around the table. Of course, there’s a certain irony in that statement, you think. No one can _mention_ anything, at least not out loud.

But you’re starting to understand all the different ways that people can communicate with each other.

Before, everything was fast and done quickly. You still haven’t entirely gotten used to that change, the need to slow down, the awareness that everything, _everything_ , makes noise.

As the sun finishes setting outside, you move the sponge in your hand silently through the soapy water, careful not to splash, to scrap the glass with a fingernail or the ring on your finger. Dinner was a silent affair, the way it always is recently, and you all looked at each other and no doubt filled in the silence of the room in your own way.

You wonder what everyone else was imagining the others saying. You wonder what they wanted to say. You spent most of the time carefully avoiding the crust on your bread and looking at Riley and trying to imagine what was running through her mind. The way she looked at you made you think she was doing the same thing. It used to be easy to imagine what was on her mind, back when it was just a joke.

Now you aren’t sure you could guess, not when you don’t have anything to go off of.

Behind you, Riley is carefully lighting more of the camping lamps, chasing the shadows out of the corners of the room. You finish washing, setting the plate silently onto the towel laid across the counter so that it dries. The water drains slowly from the sink, trickling through the pipes steadily inside of in a giant rush.

On the couch, Auggie and Topanga sit with a book between them, reading silently together. It’s a chapter book now, one that was gathering dust on the shelf, but it’ll have to do, you figure. Auggie’s collection of books was left behind months ago and you’ll never understand the kid and his drive to read all the time.

Movement catches the corner of your eye and you look away from the scene on the couch to see Riley lifting the camping lantern, smiling at you as she brings it over. She points in the vague direction of where the front door had once been, before it became obvious that letting it slam would be like firing a gun into a crowded room and you try to imagine what it is that she wants out of you.

_Stars_ , she mouths, a hopeful smile on her face.

And of course, you think, Riley Matthews wants to go outside and look at the stars.

The world might have ended but, hey, you never could see them back in the city. Too much light pollution. That’s pretty much the opposite problem you’re all dealing with now.

When Riley goes to point again over her shoulder, having decided apparently that you aren’t understanding her meaning fast enough, her elbow bumps the lantern on the counter and tips it dangerously toward the edge.

You see her eyes grow wide, just like you see the second when it becomes clear that the lantern isn’t going to be able to fight against gravity. It isn’t going to be able to right itself. You reach forward, grabbing at the lantern before it can hit the floor and shatter there between both sets of bare feet.

The glass burns the tips of your fingers and you tip it back to safety while simultaneously pulling away, your body acting on impulse, flashes of pain zipping through your mind even as you somehow remember to bite your tongue instead of crying out.

You jerk your hand back away from the lantern and your elbow knocks the plate, the one you’d just so carefully washed, onto the floor.

It seems like a metaphor, a reminder that life and Maya Hart-Hunter do not get along.

The plate hits the floor and shatters and the sound seems amplified in this place where you’ve all worked so hard to be silent.

Except, of course, it takes you all of two seconds to ruin that.

The silence that follows seems louder than it’s ever been.

You look at the plate, broken there in a dozen pieces, and then up at Riley. She’s already staring at you, her bright eyes wide, her expression fearful. You’ve gotten tired of seeing her look like that; it doesn’t seem fair that Riley Matthews, who should only see sunshine and rainbows and kittens in pajamas, should have to experience the end of the world.

_Maya_ , you imagine her saying, her voice somehow forgiving and frightened.

_Riley_ , you wish you could say, apologetic and resigned.

You think about saying it, just for a moment. What do you have to lose at this point. The rule has been broken.

On the couch, Topanga and Auggie have turned around and are staring at you, at the plate on the floor, at the sound that seems to have taken on a presence of its own there in the room. You can see the fear on Topanga’s face too, the way she reaches a hand toward Auggie, the way she’s already moving her eyes toward the curtain that serves as a door.

And Corey hurries into the room, comically ten seconds too late to actually be of use and you almost wish the situation was different. You almost wish that you could laugh. Because the tableau you all have going on right now is too priceless not to immortalize forever.

You want to paint it, to call it _Frozen in Silence_ or maybe something less obvious, like _Broken Glass_. You want to sketch everyone as they are now, frozen in silent expressions of confusion and fear, all because of the shattered plate.

Except, you know, things aren’t really frozen. Time is still ticking by, stretched impossibly tight because of the silence, the anticipation. Riley reaches for your hand and you don’t have the heart to push her away, to move her out of the sphere of your influence. Like if those things came down, if they tore through the ceiling right now, you could somehow convince them to take just you. Because you’re the one who broke the rule and ruined it all.

The only sound is the whistling of the breeze outside, the soft creaking of the chair on the porch as the wind tips it backward.

And slowly, second by second, you can feel the collective exhale of everyone in the house. You can see Corey start to relax; you can see Topanga release Auggie from her grip; you can see Auggie’s shoulders slump slightly.

Riley is the only one who doesn’t move, who doesn’t let go of your hand.

You look at Corey and try to imagine what he might have done if those things had come inside. _I’m sorry_. The words are easier to say silently than they have been to say out loud.

But Corey shakes his head, a gesture of forgiveness, of dismissal, a sort of _ah, forget it Maya, you crazy kid_ thing that you’ve seen him do so many times before.

Riley squeezes your hand again and you pull away, not looking at any of them as you turn away and hurry past Corey and toward the back bedroom. But you make sure to move on silent feet, on the carefully worn places where the floor doesn’t betray you when you move. You might not get so lucky again.

It’s dark but you know the way and there isn’t much furniture around anymore to risk running into anyway. The bed is just a mattress on the floor, the frame declared unsafe upon arrival two months before but it’s big enough for two and cozy with its quilts and mountains of pillows. You ease yourself under the blankets, willing the room to remain dark and still and empty around you. You don’t want her to chase after you, not right now.

You try not to be disappointed when she doesn’t.

Instead, you hide yourself beneath the blankets, creating a tent of sorts, like that’s somehow enough. It was an accident and you know that everyone knows this; you didn’t mean to break the plate, didn’t mean to break the rule.

But you broke the rule of silence, always. And without it…well…the best of your intentions wouldn’t have been able to do much against those things now, would they?

A careless mistake, another in what you feel is just a long line of careless mistakes. They mean something different now, now that the world is over and the only thing that matters is to survive.

You reach into your shirt, tugging on the gold chain around your neck. The chain whispers against your skin and you hold the locket in your palm until it starts to grow warm from your touch. You don’t open it anymore; you can’t bear to, most of the time.

Another example of someone’s best intentions meaning nothing in the end. A family picture, taken of a family that promised to be together forever, to not repeat the mistakes of the past, to break what sometimes felt like an endless cycle.

Sometimes, you know, the universe has other ideas.

Holding the locket makes you feel both better and worse at the same time but you don’t let go. You just close your eyes and apologize to the people in the picture and to the people you have left.

_I’ll be more careful next time_ , you want to tell them, _I’ll be better_.

But you don’t say it out loud, of course. You can’t. You just keep your eyes closed and imagine everyone can hear you perfectly.

You don’t realize that you’ve fallen asleep until you’re waking up, roused by the sensation of someone climbing into bed beside you, burrowing beneath the fort of blankets you’ve made for yourself.

Every night, Riley cuddles close to you and every night, her closeness takes your breath away. This night is no different, even though you’re still half asleep, still tightly holding your locket in one hand.

You wish the moment meant as much to her as it does to you. But at the same time, you wouldn’t change it for the world. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize your closeness or her arms around you.

You both sleep much better this way, on your mattresses and your pile of blankets, tucked into the corner of a bedroom in a cabin upstate that Shawn brought you all to when it became obvious that silence was the only thing that would save you.

He had helped take the bed frame apart before disappearing the next day, to search for your mother and anyone else left behind. _I’ll be back,_ he had written onto one of the notepads that had always been close by, _I promise_.

The last part, you know, had been for you.

But, what else can be said about good intentions and how they never matter?

Your hand tightens around the locket before you let it fall against your chest once more.

Riley moves close to you and you wonder if she can feel you shiver or if she’s used to it by now. She never seems to notice the response she elicits when she moves close enough to tuck her face against the curve of your neck.

Tonight, she lifts her head, just slightly. “Don’t feel bad, Maya,” she whispers against the shell of your ear, so quiet it’s almost more breath than words, “it was an accident.”

The sound of her voice, after all this time of imagining it only in your head, is like an electric shock to your entire system.

It’s enough to make you fall in love with her all over again.

It’s enough to make your heart stop and jumpstart itself again just as quickly.

Because Riley Matthews broke the rule.

For you.

And you are such a terrible person than you just want her to do it again.  

    

* * *

 

_You’ve been at the Matthews house for three days and things have not gotten better. Things outside -not just outside the bay window but outside in the world, the big,_ wide _world that’s bigger than New York and everything else- are only getting worse._

_The world is ending._

_You’d always thought it would be zombies._

_But these things don’t seem to be zombies. They seem to be aliens, or so the people on the news are saying. The ones who are left anyway._

_Everything is going downhill, fast. And it’s not just the aliens, of course, that are ruining everything and causing destruction and murdering pretty much everyone who goes running from them but the people are pretty terrible too. The looting, the violence, the absolute panic that pretty much translates to mob behavior -you can hear it all happening outside the closed and locked windows._

_You don’t think you’ve ever seen Riley’s window locked before. Not that you need to be crawling through it, seeing as you’ve been sitting firmly in their house since you and Riley walked out of school that first day to get Auggie and hurried to Topanga’s. She was shutting down and told the three of you to get into the apartment and lock the door and not open it for anyone who wasn’t a “trusted adult.” She actually said those words: trusted adult._

_You think there probably aren’t that many left outside the apartment you’ve been calling home for years._

_It’s been three days and you haven’t been outside. You’ve only been watching the world fall apart through the windows or via the TV and social media, scrolling through your phone to see who is posting what. You spend a lot of your time on the couch, Riley’s head in your lap and your fingers in her hair. She’s chewed through all her fingernails and is working on the cuticles, watching the coverage with a focused intensity that would worry you if everyone else in the world wasn’t doing the exact same thing. These things -the looting, the destruction, the violence- don’t suit her very well. Her face is ashen, her appetite worryingly nonexistent, her sleep beside you restless and infrequent._

_You want more than anything to turn off the TV and make all of this go away. You wish you could tell her it was all going to be okay and that you could_ mean _it, that you could make it happen the way you used to do when you were kids. You wish you could change things, protect her, make them different._

_But you can’t. Instead, you just sit on the couch with her head in your lap and your fingers in her hair and sometimes you smooth your fingers down the sides of her cheeks or trace the outline of her spine with the tip of your finger. You don’t think it helps, not really, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t seek her own space, doesn’t seem to want to be alone._

_You even shower with the bathroom door open so that the other can wait in the hallway, a sentry for whatever is outside._

_You feel like it’s only a matter of time before they get in here. It seems impossible that you’re all still okay, that you’re still in the apartment, still together. You look out the windows and you wonder…you wait._

_But you don’t say any of this out loud to Riley._

_Just like you don’t say anything out loud about your mother._

_Because it’s been three days and you haven’t seen your mother. You haven’t heard from her. She hasn’t answered your phone calls or your text messages. You keep sending them, keep calling every hour, on the hour. Like this time she might…that you might get lucky and she’ll…that you’ll hear her voice._

_You pretend, only because this time you can’t bear to admit any sort of alternative. You’ve spent your entire life assuring yourself that it’s okay that you don’t hear from your mother, that she isn’t there, that she’s working through this school performance or that parent conference._

_But this time it’s different. This time you care very much and you can’t give voice to the alternative._

_Corey has been out of the apartment. You know he and Shawn have been to your apartment, that they’ve been everywhere they could think to look for your mother, but neither of them offer much more of a comment than a head shake or an assurance that they’ll keep looking, that they’ll keep trying. Shawn brings you a bag of stuff taken from your room. Most of it is all the wrong stuff, things you probably wouldn’t have thought to grab for yourself. But you appreciate it anyway, because it smells like home._

_“I’m going to keep looking, though,” Shawn tells you, one night when you happen to run into each other in an otherwise quiet apartment. “It’s not over yet.”_

_You both look at each other and say nothing more._

_You believe Shawn, because he’s never really given you a reason not to. Not about the_ it’s not over yet _part but about the rest of it. He_ will _keep trying._

_“What’s going to happen to us, Maya?” Riley asks you one night, when it’s been five days since you’ve been outside and there are more aliens and less people and neither one of you are sleeping. You’re just laying in her bed, shoulder-to-shoulder, staring up at the dark ceiling._

_“Nothing is going to happen to us, Peaches,” you tell her. “This will…it’ll start to blow over, you’ll see. They’ll get it under control.”_

_Riley turns to look at you and you can see her features in the unidentifiable flickering light from somewhere outside the bay window. “What if they don’t? What if they can’t, and no one can, and those things-”_

_“Hey, honey, stop,” you say quickly, reaching to take her face in your hands. “Stop, okay? I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”_

_It’s a lofty promise but one you don’t feel like you can’t keep._

_It’s how you’ve always lived your life and you don’t understand why the end of the world has to change any of that._

 

* * *

 

You sit on the porch and listen to the quiet and there are a lot of things you like about this place and it makes you feel guilty for even thinking about things like that. The world is over; most of the population is dead; you haven’t seen anyone other than the Matthews clan in almost two months; you’re pretty sure anyone else you’ve ever known and cared about is dead and gone. But here you are, enjoying the sun on your face and the warmth of the breeze as it brushes against your cheeks.

You refrain from tapping your pencil against the sketch pad, unwilling to chance even such a small sound. It’s been a week since you shattered the plate and, thankfully, no one died. But you aren’t going to risk it again.

Instead, you just think without the rhythmic tapping, looking at the half-finished sketches that you’ve filled the pages with today. There’s the view from the porch right now: the trees, the way that sun slants down through them and onto the dry grass, the wild flowers that grow in tangles. There’s a mostly finished one of Auggie; you’ve had years to get his changing proportions right, how he’s gone from short and chubby-cheeked to lanky like his sister, his face slimming down. His hair is still your favorite part to draw, how he has a mop of curls on his head that seems to defy any sort of earthly gravity or attempts at taming them.

There’s also a sketch of Topanga, though you haven’t done much past her long and slender fingers, how you’ve become fascinated with her hands recently. She spends so much time working with them now, more than usual. The cooking, cleaning, mending, planting. The things she does to ensure daily survival, to ensure that everything is always quiet and still. How her fingers are trying to move to the sounds of a new language, one she’s determined to master and, you know, it’s only a matter of time before she does. Topanga has never been one for vanity, not as long as you’ve known her, but her nails are blunt now, no longer covered in polish. You’ve drawn that aspect too: the calluses, the ragged cuticles.

Quietly, you turn the page to the sketch you started earlier, one you haven’t quite managed to get right. It’s of Corey, but of the Corey he was before all of this. Like Riley, he seems to struggle with fitting in to this new, quiet world. He’s nothing is not loud and boisterous, smiling and always ready to express himself like an explosion of sound. It used to startle you, for a while, when you were younger, how loud and energetic he was, how he just seemed to be excited about everything. It was different with Riley, even though she was the same way; you adjusted to her particular brand of noise quickly.

But now, there’s no noise. There’s no place in the world for explosions of sound and joy and teachable moments. There’s no place for fathers hanging around waiting to guide their children in the right direction and gloat over their learning. There’s no place for the Corey Matthews laugh, for the way he says his wife’s name, for his stammering moments of confusion.

If you were to try and draw Corey as he is now, you think it would mostly be a picture of confusion, the expression of a man who can’t figure out where to fit in, how to express himself, how to protect his family.

So, instead, you draw Corey as he was: smiling and in front of the classroom, ready to use his daughter as a teachable moment.

You like drawing him much better this way. It’s easier and more familiar.

Though, you only put down a few lines before you feel a tug in your chest, an inkling in the back of your mind that makes you look up and wonder. There’s a part of your body that feels like its aligned constantly with Riley’s, like you will forever orbit around her, no matter the circumstances. You aren’t used to being without her but here, things are different. There are more things to do, things to accomplish. Things you should be doing instead of sketching in the sun on the front porch.

You look up, looking for her. Back home, your _real_ or, you suppose, _original_ home, there were only so many things you worried about -a variety of different things that could hurt or ensnare Riley, things she needed you to protect her from. But here, things are obviously different. The worst part about those things is that you know they’re out there, in the forest and in the trees, always lurking, a constant presence. There are more of them now, you suppose, than there are human beings, especially in this remote area. You just have to trust that if they can’t hear you that you’ll be safe. That _Riley_ will be safe, when she’s out doing whatever chore she’s caring out.

She’s better at following the rules than you are, you know this.

Except for that night, a week ago, when you got to hear her voice again. When the sound of her words and the warmth of her breath brushed against your ear as her arms encircled you.

But she’s better at following the rules. You take a small sort of comfort from this.

But still…Riley is Riley and…

And suddenly you don’t think you can concentrate on wasting anymore time sketching.

You set your notepad aside, getting to your feet quietly, stretching until you hear your back crack. A quiet pop, not the sort of thing that you think will attract any of those things living out there in the grass.

Almost as though summoned by your thoughts and the anxiety rolling through your stomach, you see Riley coming around the side of the house, earbuds stuck firmly in place, a basket of laundry in her hands. Her eyes are downcast, focused on where she’s putting her feet, focused on steadying the basket in her hands, and you feel the nerves whoosh out of your body at the sight of her.

You don’t have many opportunities like this one, moments where you have the chance to watch Riley without her being aware of your eyes on her. There’s a pretense to her that’s been dropped, the way it is when she’s asleep or barely awake, when she seems to forget to be Riley Matthews and just…is.

Watching her and how carefully she places each foot, uncertain and focused, reminds you of the sketch you’ve been working on, the one of Corey. How there isn’t much of a place of Riley Matthews here in this new world either. You fit in just fine; you’ve always been fine with silence, with keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself. But Riley, not so much. She’s always been a girl born to be heard, who actually had things to say that were worth listening to. And this brave new world has taken that from her, has turned her into this firework set off in a glass bottle.

You chew on the inside of your cheek wishing, more than anything, that you could hear her voice again.

Riley looks up and catches your eye and smiles and that, you think, is the next best thing.

You make room for her on the porch, sitting down on the sun-warmed boards once more. The basket of clothes sits there between you and when she reaches for a piece of clothing to fold, you decide to do the same.

Without any sort of prompting, Riley removes one of the earbuds and slips it into your ear. You’ve both heard every song on the iPod countless times, seeing as the end of the world pretty much means no more new music or access to anything that wasn’t already uploaded, but it doesn’t really seem to matter. You miss music, maybe more than almost anything else, and the stolen moments with it are good enough, even if you’ve heard the same Lorde fifty times in the past week.

There’s also something to be said about sharing the same song, the same moment in the music, with Riley.

You work side by side in silence, the music a connecting thread between the two of you, and soon you have a pile of clothes folded and back in the basket and there’s nothing else to do for the time being aside from sit in the sun with Riley’s shoulder against yours, sharing a pair of headphones.

You lean back, stretching your arms out behind you, tilting your head upward and closing your eyes. The sun is warm but Riley, beside you, is warmer.

In your ear, Lorde sings _laughing ‘til our ribs get tough_ and Riley reaches out to cover your hand with her own and you think maybe the world hasn’t ended completely.

 

* * *

 

_Now the TV is on all the time, another presence in the house. You all sit around the table and Riley picks at her food and you try to pretend like it doesn’t worry you, that you don’t want to grab her and shake her and yell “I can’t lose you too!” and all of this is done to the murmur of the TV behind you._

_There’s nothing new, not anymore. Not in the two weeks since those things landed, and everything is forever changed, and the world is officially over. But you’re still safe, still instead the Matthews’ apartment and the streets outside are quieter than they’ve been before. Mostly because there aren’t as many people around anymore to keep wreaking havoc._

_You feel a little bit like a princess in a tower, staring down at the world, waiting for it to come climbing up your hair to throw you down to the wolves._

_You’re Maya Hart-Hunter. One of the first lessons you learned in life is that bad things are always right around the corner. It’s only ever a matter of time._

_And then, on the news, the first announcement made in a slightly optimistic tone of voice by a young but haunted looking newscaster. “Scientists now believe that the way to fight back against these invaders,” he begins and all heads swivel in the direction of the TV, “is silence. They can’t see you, but they can hear you. They seem to be attracted to noise.”_

_And then, his face changes slightly, as though realizing the implications of this statement. He swallows but seems uncertain about adding anything else._

_“They can hear us?” Auggie questions, putting his fork side. “Does that mean we’re going to have to be quiet forever so they can’t find us?”_

_Riley and Corey have identical, lost expressions on their faces._

_“I guess,” Topanga says, slightly upbeat, “but just for a little while. Until they figure out something else. Better safe than sorry.”_

_It takes you a second to realize that she’s starting to whisper, letting her voice get quieter and quieter with each word._

_Later, when you and Riley and Auggie are in Auggie’s room playing a silent game of Old Maid, you can hear the whispers from the living room as Corey and Topanga and Shawn talk about their options._

_“We can’t stay here forever,” Topanga says, “it’s not practical. And it’s not safe. There are still hundreds of people in the city. If those things really hunt us based on sound, then it’s only a matter of time before they hear us up here or they’re drawn by the noise of someone else. We can’t take any chances.”_

_Silence follows her words and the game in Auggie’s room has stopped too. You realize you aren’t the only one listening._

_“I know a place,” Shawn says finally. “A cabin I stayed at once when I was on assignment. It’s pretty secluded and there’s plenty of room for everyone.”_

_The quiet seems like an agreement. Soon, you’ll all be leaving the city._

_You haven’t heard from your mother in fourteen days, nine hours, and twenty-three minutes. You’ve called her every day except for today, because of the news report and your uncertainty about how you fit into this whole grand scheme of survivalist silence. But you texted her, like you always do, and it’s just sitting in a long string of unread, unanswered messages._

_And now you’ll be leaving and you aren’t sure how to let her know that soon you’ll be gone._

 

* * *

 

In your mind, you think of all the things you wish you could say to Riley. All the things that you’d like to think you would have said, eventually, if you were given the chance.

You aren’t entirely sure this is true, given your history with saying the things that you feel, the things that you have on your mind. You’ve had years to tell Riley how you feel but you never have. Never made it clear that the promises you made her, the words you said, were more than just the words and promises of a best friend. They were that too, of course, but you wanted them to be so much more.

You were afraid to open your mouth and tell her the truth.

And now you’re literally afraid for your life to open your mouth.

Maybe all of this is somehow your fault. A cosmic punishment made by some old school Greek gods who would find this sort of thing funny.

But even still, you think about what you would say to her, now, in this otherwise perfect moment. It’s just you and Riley, walking together down the safe path in the woods, watching your feet to make sure they don’t crack a stick or dislodge a rock. The sun is falling in spots through the branches and you watch it play across Riley’s face out of the corner of your eye. She’s beautiful, but she’s so much more than that.

There’s a stream on your left, the place you know sometimes Corey and Auggie come to gather fish or other small water-dwelling creatures for dinner but you and Riley have never really come this far away from the house but there’s only so much you can do, day after day, around the place to keep yourself entertained. It’s almost been three months and you’re already getting cabin fever.

This walk is nice.

The water is nice.

The company is perfect.

It’s strange to hear the sound of the water rushing over the rocks, moving steadily downstream on its course, unaltered or unchanged by the events that have happened recently. It’s strange to actually hear a sound, one that isn’t pulling in those things like a magnet.

And the sound only gets louder until it turns into a roar and something else entirely.

A waterfall. A small one, one that starts in the rocky outcropping on the opposite side of the bank and spills noisily into the stream. It makes it impossible to hear anything else, even the leaves that shake from the breeze and the creaking of the branches. Riley stands beside you, marveling at the sight, her cheeks and yours growing damp from the spray on the rocks.

There’s a hollow behind the waterfall, a natural cave created by the rocks and roots overhead and it gives you an idea. Smiling, you tap on Riley’s wrist to get her attention, tilting your head toward the waterfall.

The water is cold as you step into it, your pants growing wet around the ankle and you shiver but it’s definitely worth it. You climb up onto the rocks behind the waterfall and glance back to make sure that Riley is there behind you. Not that you really needed to doubt that she would be there, following closely behind. You offer her you hand, pulling her up onto the slick rock beside you.

It’s cool behind the thundering water and the sun hitting the mist creates a dozen tiny rainbows. It’s beautiful and you can see the way Riley’s eyes wander, taking it all in. But that’s not why you dragged her back here.

“Riley.”

She jumps at the sound of your voice, the sudden use of her name, and her head whips in your direction, eyes wide. She leans forward to clamp a hand over her mouth and you smile against her palm, reaching up to pull her hand away.

“Riley,” you say again, staring into her wide eyes, “it’s okay. Those things can’t hear us.”

Riley shakes her head and she’s not the girl who held you close and whispered in your ear and broke the rule. She’s the girl who is afraid to break any rule, but this one in particular, and, more than anything, you can see that she’s the girl afraid for you.

“Listen,” you say quietly, and she does, tilting her head almost comically. “The waterfall. It’s louder than we are. They can’t hear us.”

Riley swallows, looking first at the waterfall and then back at you. “Maya…”

You haven’t missed being able to talk, not really. But you have missed being able to listen. To hear Riley’s voice.

“See?” You smile at her. “It’s safe here.”

Riley frowns slightly. “Is anywhere really safe?”

You nod, squeezing her hand. “It’s safe when we’re together.”

The expression of uncertainty on Riley’s face disappears and she smiles, however slightly. “It’s weird…being able to just…talk.” She looks at you. “I kinda forgot what I sounded like.”

You could never forget that. But you nod anyway. “Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Riley says, drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She watches the water thunder down, forever down. “I thought when I could talk again I would just have a million things to say but…I don’t even know what to say.”

You think of your thoughts earlier and wonder if those laughing Greek gods decided to whip this spot up just for you.

Once you leave this place, you’ll have to be silent again.

It suddenly weighs on your shoulders differently.

“Riley…”

That’s the word you wish had been your last, only now you wish for something different.

She looks at you, her eyes settling on yours, solemn and heavy.

Your hand is holding onto hers tightly and you swallow, your heart pounding in time with the water thundering around you. “Riley, I…”

In a great show of irony, the words seem to stick in your throat, impossible to shake loose. But Riley only nods, smiling. “Maya,” she says and you want to hear your name past her lips over and over, “I know.”

It’s easier than you thought. You don’t know what you were so afraid of before.

Of course she knew. She’s always known you.

Kissing your best friend is different than you imagined it would be. You don’t think you ever could have imagined it exactly like this, the perfect softness of her lips, the warmth of them when everything else is chilled from the spray of the waterfall. The way you seem to know immediately what to do, exactly how to kiss her, exactly how to lean closer, to move into her space and bring her into yours.

It’s perfect because, just like always, Riley doesn’t have to say anything for you to understand exactly what she means. And you don’t have to say anything to be understood.

You just kiss her and it feels like a weight finally rolls of your shoulders and it’s just Riley, Riley, Riley.

It always has been.

 

* * *

 

_You don’t really take much when you leave. The locket is around your neck, where it always is, and the ring Riley gave you still sits snuggly on your finger, a constant weight. These are the only two things that matter, when you really think about it. So you pack only clothes and your sketchpad and pencils and that’s that. You haven’t even thought about going to your apartment since Corey and Shawn went; you can’t think of anything there that you need to have, besides you know that the place is empty._

_You watch Riley debate with herself what to bring, studying the carefully put together cheeriness of her room and imagine never seeing any of it again. By now, no one is speaking. It’s fear that makes it easy to cut conversation cold turkey, the belief that the second a single word slips free that those things will find you._

_You made up your mind that you aren’t going to be the one to endanger anyone you have left. Nothing you have to say is that important._

_So you watch Riley study her things in silence, her bag open at her feet, already packed mostly full with clothes and a pair or two of shoes. You watch as she looks at the pictures she has on her wall, the ones of her and her parents and her and Auggie and her and the friends that you think you’ve lost by now._

_By this point, you’ve come to accept that no word from someone means only one thing._

_The only people you have left are here with you in this apartment, this home that you’ve known for so many years. The one you’re all about to leave in order to try and survive._

_The pictures Riley carefully unpins from the wall, stacking carefully in her hands, laying carefully on top of the clothes in her bag. Without them there, the room looks suddenly empty, uninhabited. Of course there will be so many things left behind: the furniture, clothes still in the closet, toys, books, proof that someone, once, had a life here._

_But without the pictures, it’s hard to say exactly who. To prove who was here._

_You reach into your bag, pulling out one of your pencils and turning toward the wall that you’ve been leaning against. And you start writing, pressing hard enough to leave a noticeable line behind, but hoping you aren’t too loud to attract those things._

_It takes Riley a few minutes to realize what you’re doing, to come sit there on the floor beside you, her legs tucked beneath herself, as she watches you write down the names of the people that you both love._

_The names of the people who will leave the apartment tomorrow and likely not return. The people that are otherwise gone._ Farkle Minkus. Lucas Friar. Katy Hart.

_Because it feels like someone should remember them._

_You wish you could think of something deep and profound to say but all you can think to write is_ we lived here, once.

_You look at Riley and she nods, a smile on her face, taking your hand._

_You don’t have to say anything for Riley to understand exactly what you mean._


End file.
